As a user of many machines, I agree with what the author said about the two most important characteristics of good design: discoverability and understanding. The example the author gave with opening doors was the one I found myself relating to. There were many doors that I encountered that gave me difficulties in figuring out what I should do in order to open the door. This touches upon discoverability that the author discussed. Some doors challenged me to try various actions (push, pull, slide) to sucessfully open the door.
Something I noticed about modern designs is that they are drawn for aesthetics. While the designs manage to perform all the functions that they are supposed to, users often struggle to figure out how to use the design and question why they are built the way they are. Aesthetics is important, especially in the current age where people care about the looks of things. However, when it comes to creating problem in using the design, I feel like it may be better to put aside the aesthetics and focus on the functionality and accessiblity of the designs.
To move on, the author talked about engineers being too logical in creating the designs. Because engineers who build the designs are being too logical, the machines they built are eventually also too logical for non-engineers to use. Hence this creates difficulties for the users and prevents them for using the inventions that the engineers spent time building. To fix this, I think engineers have to have the mindset of “we are building designs for people according to their ability” and not “we are creating designs for people who think like we do”. In this way, instead of having the users fit into the designs, designs will fit into humans and meet their needs.
Overall, the reading made me rethink about designs around me and their purpose. While there are many great designs already out there in the world, I believe people can create better designs by understanding the abilities and logic of humans or the target customers.